


if on a full moon

by nebulasong



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Alpha/Alpha, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon, F/F, Implied Sexual Content, Mild Blood, Minor Character(s), Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:33:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22534045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nebulasong/pseuds/nebulasong
Summary: The challenges happen every twenty five years, and next month marks twenty five years since the last.
Relationships: Anna/Elsa (Disney)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 75





	if on a full moon

  
_Inhale hard love suck in the smell and reward reap eat chew swallow devour all the goodness and love that is given to you._

_Exhale calmness in acknowledgment of the beauty within the courage it takes to not fear love._

_—- Tanya Tagaq_

The challenges happen every twenty five years. They're intense, every time, the people grouping together to watch how it happens, how one of their rulers dies. The challenges happen every twenty five years, and next month marks twenty five years since the last. 

Elsa draws another line on the wall, this is the tenth face-off of each kingdom against each other. It is her time to stand proud, make Arendelle come on top again, control the trading routes again, hold the power again. She feels full to the brim with responsibility and undue pride for that.

One turn of the moon left. She rests her forehead on the cold stone and breathes deep. In truth, she feels half-formed, unshaped, but she has had private classes on this. Put reins on your Alpha instincts, grow ivies around them, know the exact moment to let them out: win. Her duty as queen. Her road to stardom.

There’s a knock on her door.

“Come in,” she says, straightening her back, hastily sitting under the covers. 

Anna’s head peeks through. Shy, almost. Her hair is down. “I couldn’t sleep.” Her voice is hoarse, it betrays the lie, and that makes it all the more endearing.

Elsa smiles, pats the space next to her on the bed. Anna slides next to her, on top of the duvet. They don’t speak, but they don’t need to, the silence is companionable. At some point, she starts humming songs from their childhood, songs from their mother, and at some point Anna joins her, pulling duvet and sheets over her body, lying down. At some point Elsa falls asleep just like that, still sitting. Her neck is sore in the morning.

  
☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾

  
There’s a meeting with the Northuldra within the week. Standard procedure, they both get acquainted. It’s funny, how few diplomatic meetings the ruler of a kingdom actually attends. Her advisers have attended many, as have diplomats, as have staff of the palace who are fast enough to deliver messages. In all her years, however, Elsa hasn’t met the person who commands the place they have the most precarious relationship with. The person she will have to go against.

The meeting always takes place under the pretense of a ball. They all wear their gowns, the citizens of each kingdom as well as the people higher up have a chance to meet, a chance to make connections. It’s all so they can use those connections, pull each other like puppets on a string later, when one of their side has won — but they’re connections nonetheless.

The room, she has to admit, is beautiful. Marble, worked by skilled technicians, velvet art on the walls. She can recognize the names of a few pieces from some of her tutoring. Know thy enemy, and all.

Elsa isn’t surprised when Anna all but drops her at the door during these get-togethers. She doesn’t mind, she’s not a good dancer. 

Anna is. Anna is a good everything. Elsa wants to stay there at the bottom of the stairs and watch, eyes hungry, hands starved. Instead, she places her hand on the elbow of an adviser, bows slightly at the crowd, and turns to go up. 

  
The ruler of the Northuldra, turns out, is an elderly woman. Yelana is her name, and she holds herself with power, legs strongly on the ground like roots. Elsa feels the need to bow again, but the adviser has a vice grip on her hand. Show no weakness. Don’t so much as imply a weakness.

Is respect a weakness? Elsa holds no answer to that.

“Good evening,” she says, breaking the silence and more than a touch proud of her voice not wavering, “it is an honor.”

Yelana’s mouth turns up at the edges, an unbloomed smile. Elsa can’t parse her expression, or its meaning, but she mimics it.

“Are you well prepared, girl?”

 _Of course not._ “I’m eager to renew the deal our ancestors created.”

They talk. A member of the staff brings some cookies, some small pieces of meat and Elsa forces a few down to be polite. Her throat is dry, she can imagine them scraping their way to her stomach, but she keeps her eyes locked at the map Yelana has on the table in front of them. There’s not much negotiation. Elsa knows what they want by heart, she anticipates what the Northuldra will ask of her and Arendelle should she lose. Yelana anticipates what she asks of them, should she win. It’s a rehash, a repeat of an exchange that never was, every move and every step known. This, too, is a dance, and it’s finally one Elsa can do. A choreography she can follow.

_Are you well prepared, girl?_

The woman’s piercing gaze. Her evident strength. Elsa allows herself to close her eyes for half a second as the door closes behind her, tries to expel any fear.

_I’m not, but I will have to be._

  
☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾

  
At night she cries in Anna’s arms. Her tears soak the fabric, the beautiful silk nightgown Anna has, color the same as the morning sky. There are almost no words exchanged, but there don’t have to be; Anna sees her, blood and bone and marrow. Elsa chokes on the wrongness of it, and chokes some more once the tears have dried and Anna makes her way down her body.

“Alpha,” she sighs.

They seek absolution like that, hands on hips, on thighs, inverting marks.

“Let me see you,” Anna whispers. “Come on, Alpha, show me what you got in you.”

It’s been so long, Elsa thinks, since she last felt free. It will be so long until she next feels free. If she wins, if she gets to feel free. She whines, she caves. Gives in.

At morning, she washes the scent of another Alpha from her. It will never feel old, the oddness, the guilt. She soaks under the water and tries to imagine herself an Omega, drawn to Alphas because Nature willed it so, because it’s what the Gods want. Tries to imagine herself in a position where her love for Anna is a locket against her chest, a benediction, not a curse.

Anna kisses the top of her head. “I have horse riding lessons,” she tells her, “don’t wait up for me today. I know you’ll be tired by evening.”

Elsa flicks some of the soapy water at her. A bubble lands on the left sleeve. “Don’t call me old.”

“You said it, not me,” Anna laughs. What a wonderful sound. “Your brittle bones will be crying before I’m done!”

“Brat,” Elsa says, and stares at her retreating back. What a girl.

  
☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾

  
“We only have one sleigh,” she tells Anna.

Every moment she spends with Anna before the challenge feels stolen. They hike up a mountain one day — after multiple complaints from Elsa’s core trainer and a lot of begging both from Anna and her — and get to watch the sea of green slowly peek out under the blanket of ice as the sun nears the mid-heaven. The migratory birds are starting to come, sing their song, add their voice.

“We can borrow another,” Anna responds. “Come on, let us have some fun.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“Racing down this hill isn’t dangerous, we’ve done it a thousand times. There’s enough snow still!”

Elsa stifles a sigh. She could never say no. If this ends with her bones broken and unable to participate in the challenge, well, at least she got to see Anna’s toothy smile as she agrees, bright and serene. 

  
Turns out it doesn’t end in broken bones, but in more toothy smiles and a hug that tackles her to the ground. Elsa won’t admit it, but she feels a little bit smug for winning the race, and a lot happy to have Anna in her arms.

☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾

  
The day of the challenge Elsa gets up with a heavy heart. Anna is still sleeping, she doesn’t have to wake for a few more hours, and leaving her feels a bit like becoming Atlas, hoisting a planet on her shoulders. 

She goes for the last-minute health check first, as is custom, the medical servant bowing before her about a thousand times. Elsa’s face is frozen from more than the cold, expression locked in place and eyes looking only ahead, at the sun slowly rising over the mountain peaks. She stays like that through the braiding of her hair, no strand left hanging despite the fact that she will be shifting to her wolf form soon, and human decorations and traditions won’t matter.

Servants walk alongside her, in front of her, behind her as they make their way to the arena. It’s always meticulously clean, the years that it goes unused make it into a museum visited by the people of Arendelle and the Northuldra and people from neighboring kingdoms. The same crowd is filling its seats today, hooting and howling and eager to watch the spectacle. There are movements of worry, too, but she knows everyone is suppressing them, too taken up by the experience. 

Anna comes to her a few minutes before the heavy gates open, runs straight to her. She looks lovely, holds the same intricate hairstyle Elsa does, her fiery color matching the spring thaw better. Elsa can’t help the grin that overtakes her face at the sight.

Anna’s face mirrors that before she turns to the core trainer. “Can I borrow my sister a bit?” she asks.

The core trainer nods. Anna immediately grabs her by the hand, drags her by two, three walls over, turns and slams her on the fourth. Gently. 

“Don’t do this,” Anna pleads, lacing their fingers together at the hand she was already holding, “stay with me. Stay next to me.”

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. “I have to,” Elsa says, and pulls her in for a kiss. “But I promise you, I’ll come back to you.” She promises with all the conviction she has, the same surety that the Earth’s whispers hold right before the change of seasons.

The second kiss tastes salty. It’s Anna’s tears, she realises, silent if not for the flavor they lend on their lips.

“Don’t cry, baby” she says, pulling back. 

It has the opposite effect. Anna hugs her tight, nods on her neck even as sobs wrack through her body. Elsa squeezes as tight as she can, eyes cast up high, willing for a deity to stop this. 

  
The gates go up, and so does the volume of the screams. No bars of steel separating them anymore, Elsa and Yelana walk towards each other. They bow to each other first, then to their people, and last they turn back to back to give their prayers, receive them from their loved ones. Elsa’s eyes search for Anna’s in the crowd. A last source of comfort.

It starts. They both shift, Elsa’s wolf grey to Yelana’s brown. They’re facing each other again. 

The air is clearer as a wolf. A single sniff can tell smooth stone from jagged, slippery ground from firm. She can hear the waterfall two hills over, feel its humidity on her fur. 

They regard each other. Slowly. In circular movements. Elsa takes a step back. The phantom of Anna’s touch is all over her body, the phantom of her sobs, of her giggles in her ears. It’s for her.

She pounces.

  
☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾

  
She’s bleeding at the left shoulder.

☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾

  
Her hind legs burn.

  
☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾

  
The yells from the crowd reverberate against the walls, clouding what’s left of her thoughts. She’s all instincts now, an arrow traveling through a tunnel, singular purpose.

☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾

  
Yelana is bleeding more. She’s staggering, steps uncertain.

Elsa can only look at her, look and look and look. It would take one blow. No, less than that; she could bring the honor and the pride they’ve been looking for in half a movement.

_Are you prepared, girl?_

She understands, in that moment, what Yelana was asking. It wasn’t a thread. She wasn’t asking Elsa if she was prepared to fight or if she was prepared to die, to give up her life and half her kingdom. She was asking if she was prepared to kill. Yelana knew she would lose. How couldn’t she? Elsa assumed age gave her more experience and more strength, but it weakened, too. Slowed reflexes. Elsa just didn’t think someone who looked as strong as Yelana would fall prey to that.

Her answer remains the same as the first time, admitted only to herself.

_Of course not._

Elsa looks again, and shifts back to her human form. She addresses the people, even as her words are meant for Yelana.

“There will be no winner tonight.”

Silence falls, her words rang out loud and clear. It’s deafening. She thinks she sees that same smile, the same vague tugged up corners of the mouth on Yelana’s face. 

Anna’s squeal breaks it.

  
☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾

“Ow,” Elsa says, as several members of the medical staff apply alcohol to her wounds. It stings, but it was dirty out there. She’s not eager for infections.

Anna is standing next to her bed, pacing up and down. It’s making Elsa a bit dizzy to follow along. She’s rambling, switching from praises at how brave Elsa is to the people didn’t take it well to what if Yelana takes it as an insult, circling between each and back. Elsa is horribly charmed.

The advisers are silent at the corner of the room. They’re trying hard to be expressionless, but Elsa has experience with them, can see their discontent.

“We’ll gather the people at the forum,” she tries to assuage her sister’s, and together the advisers’, worries, “I’ll explain to them. I’m their beloved ruler, it’ll be okay.”

After a quick cleanup, and before they make any public statements, Elsa meets with Yelana again. The ground is more equal this time, the scale evened out. 

“I didn’t think you’d do that,” Yelana greets her. Elsa can hear the begrudging respect in her voice, preens under it. 

“Ten is an important number. For the tenth challenge I hoped to inspire change, as I hope to inspire change as a ruler of Arendelle. I think it’s time for our kingdoms to work in unison.”

“Share our resources,” Yelana agrees. “Take a seat.”

Elsa does.

Yelana’s gaze is piercing again, straight to her soul. “And tell me why you really did it.”

A laugh bubbles out of her throat before she can stop it. Pure disbelief. “I wasn’t lying. It’s just…” she trails off. “Yes, there is another part.

“I fell in love.” _And I couldn’t bear the thought of Anna laying with a murderer._

  
They gather the people back in the arena. It was used as a middle point between the two kingdoms to ensure an even fight, now it’s to gather all citizens. It’s them up tall, now, making speeches. A rotten tomato gets thrown, but not with nearly enough force, plops at the feet of a fellow citizen. Elsa manages to restrain herself, but she can hear Anna behind her giggle.

It goes okay, all in all.

  
☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾ ☽☾

  
Anna holds her hand on their way home. Elsa feels like a good ruler, like a proper Queen and like a proper Alpha for the first time in her life. Heart no longer in a state of flux, it inhales and exhales love.

**Author's Note:**

> hehe a few points:
> 
> \- this isn't a very long work, but it took me an absurd amount of time to create :') it's a bit embarrassing  
> \- I am not quite sure about the rating, even though t feels right to me  
> \- this was partially inspired by all the chinese a/b/o fics in the tag and the lack of english language ones  
> \- i run the risk of sounding full of myself here, but i wanted to take the space of a/b/o dynamics as an allegory to homosexuality, and lgbt+ love as deviance in general. yes this is partially my 'elsa is a lesbian' thesis.
> 
> lots of love! hope this was enjoyable <3


End file.
